Clown posse was big part of early Fiesta

In 1904, San Antonio men wore clown costumes for a circus on South Flores Street staged to raise funds for charity. Standing: John Tobin (3rd from left), “Gummy” Hamilton (2nd from right) and John Spring (far right). Seated: Jack Watts (2nd from left), Atlee B. Ayres (3rd from left) and Hayden Smith (far right).

Photo: Courtesy /UTSA Special Collections

Second of two columns

Believe it or not, the sophisticated Cole Porter wrote these lyrics: “Be a clown, be a clown / All the world loves a clown ….Wear the cap and the bells / And you'll rate with all the great swells.” That song was written for a 1948 movie, and if the sentiment seems unconvincing, be aware that clowns left a heavier footprint on early 20th-century culture than they do now.

San Antonio was no exception. It must have been hard to deal with coulrophobia — literally, “fear of one who goes on stilts” — here in the early decades of the last century, when amateur and professional clowns were part of nearly every public entertainment.

That would explain why adult relatives of the late John Igo (whose other question, about San Antonio’s probable last hominy vendor, was answered here last Sunday) were still talking about a bygone clown-centered festivity during his childhood in the 1930s. It used to come during Fiesta San Antonio, when older members of Igo’s family used to say, “They should bring back the Clowns Parade. Now, that was really something!” A long-time instructor in English at San Antonio College, Professor Igo, as many called him, also was a local-history buff with deep roots in the area and he was intrigued by the idea of a Fiesta event he didn’t know anything about.

Clowns, it seems, used to be as common on city streets as hominy was on local dinner tables. They were an advertised draw for nearly every public entertainment, on the streets and in parks, schools and churches. Audiences were subjected to canine clowns, cowboy clowns, lady clowns, “pantomimic clowns” and “old- and new-style clowns.” There were clown bands, a “pyramid of canine clowns” and “20 of the funniest clowns of the world.”

Apparently, even some of San Antonio’s most prominent citizens wanted to get into the act. A photograph in the collection of the Institute of Texan Cultures shows architect Atlee B. Ayres, according to catalog information, among several “San Antonio men wearing clown costumes for (a) circus staged to raise funds for charity.”

Whatever their pedigree, clowns took to the streets for the city’s year-round cycle of parades. These rites of passage welcomed visiting dignitaries, drummed up enthusiasm for the International Exposition, heralded the Christmas shopping season, saluted the military, opened the baseball season and alerted everyone that the circus was in town. Nearly always, clowns swelled the ranks of the marchers.

Fiesta San Antonio — formerly known as the San Antonio Spring Carnival — was the parade of parades. In 1910, for instance, the weeklong festival observed more than one a day — the Battle of Flowers Parade, Civic and Trades Display Parade, Illuminated Automobile Parade, Knights of Omala Grand Spectacular Torchlight Parade, Mystic Order of Shriners Parade, Procession of Cities and Queen’s Royal Progress. Additional specially credentialed clowns, “bedecked in clown attire and with (faces) grotesquely painted,” were given permission to “parade the streets” during the rest of the carnival, says the San Antonio Light, April 21, 1910. “Professional clowns at work at all times,” promised advertisements.

Sporadically, from 1908 through 1913, the festival included yet another parade, called “the circus parade” or the “burlesque parade.” (Thanks to Judith Berg Sobre, author of “San Antonio on Parade: Six Historic Festivals,” for the tip on this parody parade.) This was a satirical take on a Fiesta parade, with members of the Texas-British Society in costumes portraying “freaks” and fierce animals controlled by keepers armed with cap pistols. Instead of flower-bedecked floats, there were “gaudily decorated cages” and “an unusually disreputable buggy.” Besides these exhibits, readers of the Light, April 19, 1911, were assured, “There will be more clowns than anything else.”

Two years later, the parade was presided over by royal figures, “Miss Vanderbuilt” and “the Great Khan-Tuch-Us.” Jokes were traded between the “burlesquers” impersonating “a vast assemblage of notables” and the crowd; the Light, April 24, 1913, cites “little evidence of rowdyism…as had been noted upon previous occasions.”

The “much-talked of burlesque parade” seems to have faded from the scene. Could this have been the parade that Igo’s relatives missed? I wish he could offer an educated guess ... and I wish he could ask me some more questions.

RETURN TO ROOT BEER: Though Weber’s Root Beer (covered here Aug. 8) wasn’t exclusive to San Antonio — it’s still going strong in its native Tulsa — and in its first decades, served only variations on a single eponymous product, the drive-in at 1418 Broadway is well-remembered by readers. David Wolf, 85, writes that he “recall(s) every swallow. Little kids were treated to a free, miniature mug of root beer, not much bigger than a jigger or two and that was as important to them as the big mugs were to the adults.”

The original location seems to have closed after the franchisee’s death in 1964, but that wasn’t Weber’s last stand in the Alamo City. Also known as Weber’s Black Cow, after its signature root beer float, the popular treat stop reopened in 1968 at the corner of Broadway and Post Avenue, says reader Chuck Sarratt. By that time, “The menu had expanded to include a grill serving hamburgers and hot dogs.” That location and another on San Pedro Avenue at Recoleta Road, expanded the drinks menu as well. Sarratt and another reader, Dan J. Solis, remember other drinks that combined fruit-flavor soft drinks and vanilla ice cream. Also served in frosted mugs, there was an Orange Baboon and a Purple Martin, made with grape soda and named in homage to the birds for whom the original Weber’s franchisee, Joseph Fallen, had installed distinctive, apartment-style birdhouses.

If thoughts of the Black Cow make you thirsty, don’t worry: No need to go to Tulsa. Look no further than Pig Stand, 1508 Broadway, “still standing next door to where Weber’s Root Beer used to be on Broadway, under (what’s now) the freeway,” says Gene Ames Jr. On Pig Stand’s menu, under desserts, is a Black Cow, described as “a frosted mug of root beer float with whipped cream on top.” Ames says that although it’s not made with what was billed as “Weber’s Superior Root Beer,” the Pig Stand product “tastes almost as good as a real Weber’s Black Cow, ice-cold root beer over frozen vanilla ice cream.” Ames recommends it, “if you ever want to relive your youth when you dropped by Weber’s every Saturday night for a Black Cow after the movie.”

HELP FOR HISTORY: With proceeds from its annual “A Night In Old San Antonio” (NIOSA) Fiesta event, the San Antonio Conservation Society will offer community grants to individuals and organizations in two categories — Historic Preservation Grants for restoration or rehabilitation of residential or commercial historic structures built before 1930 in Bexar and surrounding counties; and Educational Grants for projects including research, video production, publication printing and documents conservation relating to the Society’s purpose. Grant applications are available on the Conservation Society website at www.saconservation.org or at the Society’s headquarters, 107 King William St. The application deadline is 4:30 p.m., Sept. 30.